Grilling: Pig Candy

Grilling: Pig Candy:

Last summer I helped at a couple New York barbecue competitions, which wet my whistle to go full steam ahead and start entering myself this summer.

The sense of community is strong at these events, with many teams willing and eager to have you taste-test their meat. While the required categories (like ribs, pulled pork, and brisket) are top priority, many grillers also chose to add their own creations, and one of the most prevalent is pig candy (that's candied bacon for the uninitiated).

As I'm looking into competitions for myself, I thought it best to figure out a recipe for great pig candy, so that I, too, can be so generous with impressive snacks for my expanding barbecue family.

The process is simple: bake bacon and sugar together. But of course it's never that simple when it comes to barbecue and grilling. Debate rages in the details—one or two sides of sugar, regular or peppered bacon, add cayenne or not, and so on.

I found my pig candy in a recipe from Patio Daddio BBQ, where the requisite brown sugar gets an added layered of sweetness with maple syrup. It can be done equally well on the grill, smoker, or oven.

This was everything I wanted pig candy to be: a thick bacon that stands meaty as its saltiness combines with the rich sweetness of caramelized sugar, while a touch of spice creates a little bite within the sea of sugar.

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About the author: Joshua Bousel brings you new, tasty condiment each Wednesday and a recipe for weekend grilling every Friday. He also writes about grilling and barbecue on his blog The Meatwave whenever he can be pulled away from his grill.

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Microsoft SC 2012 to Support Multi-Hypervisor Private Cloud for a Flat Fee

Microsoft SC 2012 to Support Multi-Hypervisor Private Cloud for a Flat Fee:

In a move to stay competitive in a cloud landscape that looked to be blowing it away, Microsoft this morning is making important strategic shifts that could advance its position in a two-front war against both VMware and Amazon. Today the company is making available a release candidate for its System Center 2012 administrative suite, which will utilize a new fabric controller (FC) for private cloud architectures.

This new FC will be hypervisor-agnostic. Up until today, Microsoft's private cloud product was called "Hyper-V Cloud," and was centered around the Hyper-V hypervisor. Today, as the company's corporate vice president tells ReadWriteWeb, the new SC 2012 Datacenter edition will feature a completely renovated, simplified licensing model, now supporting unlimited virtual machines for the same, flat fee.

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Trying to smash VMware flat

"The biggest innovation we did in System Center 2012 is, we dramatically simplified the licensing and pricing," Microsoft CVP Brad Anderson tells RWW. The existing edition had eight different SKUs, enough to compel customers to literally attend seminars about which versions to purchase. With the 2012 edition, there will be the Standard and Datacenter SKUs, the only difference between them being the number of OS instances their licenses will allow. Standard will be limited to 4; Datacenter will be unlimited.

"One thing that we see every year, when we look at the reports, is the VM density-per-server continues to get higher and higher. It's very common right now for us to see a single server hosting up to 20 VMs," says Anderson. "As customers increase their use of virtualization, with SC 2012, their costs do not increase. If they're using VMware, their costs go up linearly."

Last August, VMware adjusted its virtual machine licensing model to one based on the amount of virtual machine memory, or vRAM, each instance consumed. These increments are multiplied by the number of VMs consuming the vRAM, so the result is a per-VM licensing fee.

Microsoft's case is essentially this: As your VMware private cloud scales up, so do your fees. As Microsoft's alternative scales up, its fees stay flat. Though consultants today still recommend a VM-to-processor ratio of about 4:1, arguably that number does tend to go much higher anyway. Microsoft's estimate of the licensing costs an enterprise would incur for VMware vSphere 5 and related tools, for 42 2-way 6-core servers running Windows Server and a respectable 6:1 VM consolidation ratio over a three-year period, is $3,242,000. Microsoft says its alternative package, which incorporates the same functionality over the same three-year period, would be $424,704.

"With System Center Standard, it's one price and you have the ability to manage 4 OS instances," reiterates Anderson. "With System Center Datacenter, it's one price independent of the number of VMs you put on that server."

A tighter-knit fabric

It was Windows Azure, the company's PaaS platform, whose architecture pioneered the concept of the fabric controller - a kind of overseer for cloud resources across servers, and in some respects the opposite of the hypervisor. Now, it's a common part of private cloud architecture, with Nova serving as the compute FC, and Swift and Glance serving as the storage FCs, for OpenStack. That open source architecture has made significant headway, presenting more of a threat than Microsoft to VMware's dominance during 2011.

Now, Microsoft's System Center 2012 will integrate a fabric controller that enables administrators to pool compute, storage, and network switching capacities, and delegate segments of those pools to organizational units in Active Directory. Here is where Microsoft made a difficult decision, knowing that the size of the available market for potential hybrid cloud deployments where only Hyper-V is the hypervisor, is probably next to nil.

"As a design point, we specifically called out that customers will be using multiple hypervisors," Anderson tells RWW, "from Microsoft, from VMware, from Xen, and with public cloud resources. So we've architected the product to be aware of that, but also to give visibility to IT to bring the capacity that is running on multiple virtualization infrastructures, together into one cloud."

As we saw last year with OpenNebula, about the only way a VMware competitor is going to gain ground is by supporting multiple hypervisors.

Hosting persistently

As we reported last week, we expect Microsoft to soon make generally available a feature that entered public beta in early 2011, called VM roles. This feature would essentially enable Windows Azure to host an application, such as SharePoint or Lync, perpetually even as compute resources are managed and relocated.

One big indicator that this release may be imminent, as Brad Anderson tells us, is System Center 2012's direct support for hosting applications as services through private or hybrid clouds. Although Azure has historically been perceived as a PaaS service for companies deploying .NET applications in the cloud, Anderson says SC 2012 may be utilized for both PaaS and IaaS hybrid deployments involving Azure. It's on the IaaS layer that enterprises may host applications as services.

"You can actually create a model that says, 'Here's this three-tier application with a Web tier, a middle tier, a data tier, there's this many servers, and this much capacity for each one of those tiers.' That model will actually be consistent and applicable into that VM role kind of model in Azure as we go forward," he states. "So the same model that you build in System Center for your private cloud will be able to run those VM roles in Azure as we move forward."

As Anderson explained, there are certain "commonalities" in Microsoft's models of the private and public cloud - components which the company will ensure can be reused in the same way when transitioning between private, hybrid, and public cloud architectures: 1) identities in Active Directory; 2) VM consistency (for easier replication); 3) management tools compatibility; and 4) development tools support.

The Release Candidate of SC 2012 is expected to be deployed among 100,000 servers. Once validation is complete, final release is expected to be within the first half of 2012. "What I've been telling people," remarks Anderson, "is, that doesn't mean June 32nd."

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Jamie Says Fail, I Say Win!

Jamie Says Fail, I Say Win!:

Last night, while scouring the Internets for an idea on what to do with a butchered chicken carcass after removing all the good meaty bits other than making stock, I stumbled upon this little bit of McDonald’s inspired awesomeness.

Perhaps, I come from the peasant school of dining, which means that every bit of an animal is sacred protein and should be eaten and not just the clean cuts you find neatly packed in plastic at the Stupidstore, so I find Mr. Oliver’s negative reaction to the kids willingness to eat his home-made chicken nuggets to be a bit strange. What’s the big deal? Replace the crappy filler and powdered binding agent with an egg, add some bread crumbs and pan fry instead of deep-fry. Some may cry foul, but I say it’s what’s for dinner. ~ PK

Why You’re Always Broke

Why You’re Always Broke:

Why You’re Always Broke

I spent last weekend in Florida, jumping out of airplanes. When I had some downtime (no pun intended,) I was doing some quick homework as to my expenses last year. I came up with ten reasons we waste money, and how to prevent them. A ton of them I’d already been doing, but I thought of a few new ones, as well. Hope they help you, too.

Why you’re always broke:

10) You’re broke because you mistakenly believe that coffee served by a person in a green apron tastes better than coffee you make yourself at home. $4 a day, $20 a week, $80 a month, $960 a year on the cup of coffee you get at Starbucks. Buy a good coffee machine. Even if it costs you $300, plus $100 in beans for the year, you’re looking at a savings of $560 if you make coffee at home and take it with you in a reusable mug.

9) You’re broke because you take cabs to or from the airport, or park at the airport. I get it, if you live in a place with no transportation system. But for everyone else, this is a needless expense. NYC, DC, Boston, San Francisco, and San Francisco are just a few of the places where the transit system is more than good enough to get you to and from the airport. NYC: $15 for the AirTrain to Newark, $2.50 from midtown to LaGuardia, $7.50 to JFK, vs. a minimum of $35 for a cab, average rate $50-70. EACH WAY. Don’t even get me started on parking costs. Use mass transit, not only for airports, but for the majority of your travel.

8) You’re broke because you prefer Seamless.com to FreshDirect.com, EVERY WEEK. In other words, you prefer to order in than to cook. I get it. Cooking is hard. BUT… Cooking just four hours on a Sunday can give you enough meals for the week. Cook half a dozen skinless chicken breasts on a Sunday, keep them in the fridge. On Monday, add a sauteed onion and nuke some spinach. Tuesday, add a small serving of pasta, and a vegetable. Wednesday, unfreeze some frozen pre-cooked shrimp, with a vegetable. Thursday, chicken with hot sauce and rice. Friday, go out. There. One meal out vs. five. Money saved – A lot, or REALLY a lot, depending on where you live.

7) You’re broke because you waste time talking on your mobile phone. The way I see it, we learned to use the mobile phone backwards. We should have started out sending texts, then learned to talk on it. Because we did it the other way, we spend way too much time talking about crap we could totally avoid if we were limited to 160 characters. If you have a low monthly minute plan, you should use your phone for emergencies and when you absolutely can’t text. (When you’re driving, for example.) If you put texting before talking, chances are, you can drop your minutes even more, lowering your bill that much more each month.

6) You might be broke because you still have a land-line. If you work somewhere other than your home, and you still have a land-line, do you have a reason for it? The only reason to still have one is in case of a massive catastrophe, when all the electricity goes out – chances are, your corded phone will still work. But other than that, you could be saving $40, $50, or even more by simply losing the land-line.

5) You’re broke because like your mother probably used to say, you actually DO think you live in a barn. When you leave, are you turning off all your lights? What about your TV? Muting it doesn’t count. Do you shut off your desktop monitor? Screen savers don’t save you that much. Shut off the monitor, if not the entire computer. Electricity doesn’t have to be as expensive as it is. Heat and AC? Same thing. Put on a sweater, or get a thinner comforter for your bed. You’d be AMAZED how much lowering the heat and AC can save you over the course of a year.

4) You’re broke because you wear one outfit, then dry-clean it. Hang a blazer on a hanger, and put it out your window for an hour. Brand new. Buy a lint-roller (all cat owners know this trick) and your blouse is ready for another day. Jeans? I wear them till they can walk on their own. I’m not saying don’t stay clean and neat, but on the same note, the only things that should be washed after each use are socks , underwear, and gym clothes.

3) You’re broke because you prefer a treadmill to that amazing thing called “The outdoors.” Take a run outside. Drop halfway through for pushups. Want more? Do them with your feet on a bench. Last tenth of a mile of the run? Squat to the finish line. Then do some sit-ups on the grass. Boom – $60-150 a month saved.

2) You’re broke because you don’t know your credit score, and aren’t negotiating lower rates. Go to annualcreditreport.com – (The only free one) and download your credit report. Got a good one? Call your credit card companies and ask for a lower rate. Bet you get it. But don’t close your accounts if you pay them off – That can actually hurt your credit report. Keep a hundred bucks on the card, and you’ll always get good interest rates, and make your score even better.

1) The number one reason you’re broke? You just assume fees “have to be.” Guess what – They don’t! Keep $100 in a TD Bank account, and all fees are GONE, including ATM fees for other ATMs. Negotiate EVERYTHING. ASK what the fees are when you rent a car, and ask to have some of them removed. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And trust me – You CAN get. Ask your utility provider how to lower your monthly bill. Ask your cell phone provider if you’re actually using all your minutes, and if not, drop down. Ask. Trust me. You CAN get.

What am I missing? Tell me your best tips below – The top ones get a prize.

Pushing the 3D Boundaries in WebKit with CSS 3D and Three.js

Pushing the 3D Boundaries in WebKit with CSS 3D and Three.js:

Sometimes, you need to see what a technology can do before you can fully appreciate it. Take, for instance, CSS 3D and Three.js. It's one thing to hear about doing 3D elements for Web sites, and another to see them integrated into a well-designed site. Take, for example, Steven Wittens' Acko.net redesign.

Visit Acko.net using a current release of Firefox, and you'll see a nice clean site with a nice header image that demonstrates two-point perspective nicely. But hit the site using a WebKit browser, and you're in for a real treat.

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Viewed in a WebKit browser like Chrome or Safari, the page text is skewed as if it's going off into the distance at the same angle as some of the lines in the header. As you scroll down, the text rights itself and the header changes perspective until you "pass under" the header to the page. The images on the side of this post give the general impression, but it's really worth the time to visit the site and see for yourself.

How and Why

Wittens says the redesign started with an accidental discovery: "if you put a CSS perspective on a scrollable <DIV>, then 3D elements inside that <DIV> will retain their perspective while you scroll." Wittens says that raised "the obvious question: how far can you take it?" Pretty far, apparently.

Why not WebGL? Wittens says "WebGL is its own sandbox: you can't put DOM elements in there, or use native interaction. And any amount of WebGL rendering in response to e.g. scrolling is going to involve some amount of lag."

Instead of trying to do the whole thing in CSS 3D, though, he also turned to Three.js. Three.js is a JavaScript 3D engine that can render to WebGL, SVG or a 2D <canvas>. Lest you worry that three.js is all work and no play, it's also used for the 3D interactive Nyan Cat.

Wittens also built a minimal 3D editor for creating the header, and has embedded it on the post about the site redesign. He also has sketches of the initial design, so you can see the original inspiration. (Do I detect a hint of old-school Tron?) The final header consists of 307 objects, and not a single image. It's not perfect, but as Wittens says "CSS 3D was never meant to do this."

I guess I'm now the proud owner of the first unofficial CSS 3D "ACID" test. I'm eager to see how the next browser handles it. If it ends up being a silly idea in the long run, I can always just switch the output to WebGL, but for now I'm willing to run with it. I put in a universal CSS 3D detector and prefixes for all the major browsers.

Looking to create some 3D of your own? Check out the three.js Getting Started Guide and read Wittens' full post. No doubt, many of you are interested in getting hands on all the code used for the site. Wittens says that he'll be putting the custom build of three.js and his minified JavaScript and CSS code up on GitHub "soon enough."

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Education — Marginal Revolution — Page 3

Education — Marginal Revolution — Page 3:

The study of science is hard

by Tyler Cowen on November 4, 2011 at 2:21 pm in Education, Science | Permalink

The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out.

Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.

Could it be that too many people like being the smartest one in the room? Or is it some other explanation?:

“But if you take two students who have the same high school grade-point average and SAT scores, and you put one in a highly selective school like Berkeley and the other in a school with lower average scores like Cal State, that Berkeley student is at least 13 percent less likely than the one at Cal State to finish a STEM degree.”

Here is the story, here is Alex’s earlier post. Science itself is even harder.

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Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students — Marginal Revolution

Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students — Marginal Revolution:

Teachers Don’t Like Creative Students

by Alex Tabarrok on December 12, 2011 at 7:33 am in Economics, Education | Permalink

One of the most consistent findings in educational studies of creativity has been that teachers dislike personality traits associated with creativity. Research has indicated that teachers prefer traits that seem to run counter to creativity, such as conformity and unquestioning acceptance of authority (e.g., Bachtold, 1974; Cropley, 1992; Dettmer, 1981; Getzels & Jackson, 1962; Torrance, 1963). The reason for teachers’ preferences is quite clear creative people tend to have traits that some have referred to as obnoxious (Torrance, 1963). Torrance (1963) described creative people as not having the time to be courteous, as refusing to take no for an answer, and as being negativistic and critical of others. Other characteristics, although not deserving the label obnoxious, nonetheless may not be those most highly valued in the classroom.

….Research has suggested that traits associated with creativity may not only be neglected, but actively punished (Myers & Torrance, 1961; Stone, 1980). Stone (1980) found that second graders who scored highest on tests of creativity were also those identified by their peers as engaging in the most misbehavior (e.g., “getting in trouble the most”). Given that research and theory (e.g., Harrington, Block, & Block, 1987) suggest that a supportive environment is important to the fostering of creativity, it is quite possible that teachers are (perhaps unwittingly) extinguishing creative behaviors.

From Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?, a good review paper. What the paper shows is that the characteristics that teachers use to describe their favorite student correlate negatively with the characteristics associated with creativity. In addition, although teachers say that they like creative students, teachers also say creative students are “sincere, responsible, good-natured and reliable.” In other words, the teachers don’t know what creative students are actually like. (FYI, the research design would have been stronger if the researchers had actually tested the students for creativity.) As a result, schooling has a negative effect on creativity.

My experience as a parent is consistent with the idea that teachers don’t like creative students but I try not to blame the teachers too much. Creative people, for better and worse, ignore social conventions. Thus, it can be hard for teachers to deal with creative students in a classroom setting where they must guide 20-30 students en masse. As Jonah Lehrer puts it:

Would you really want a little Picasso in your class? How about a baby Gertrude Stein? Or a teenage Eminem? The point is that the classroom isn’t designed for impulsive expression – that’s called talking out of turn. Instead, it’s all about obeying group dynamics and exerting focused attention. Those are important life skills, of course, but decades of psychological research suggest that such skills have little to do with creativity.

One hope I have for personalized learning, ala the Khan Academy, is that teachers will not feel the need to suppress creative students when classroom dynamics do not require that all the students follow all the rules all the time .

Hat Tip: Erik Barker.

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Comic for December 19, 2011

Comic for December 19, 2011:

Neil deGrasse Tyson on America’s Science Decline

Neil deGrasse Tyson on America’s Science Decline:

In the following video, Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how the amount of peer reviewed science research being done in America has gone down since 2000, and gone up in other places of the world.

[Via Videosift]

Related posts:

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson on 2012 – The Movie
2. The Poetry of Science: Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson
3. Neil deGrasse Tyson: The 1% Difference [Video]